Johannes Weyrauch
When Weyrauch took his Abitur in 1916, it was not possible for him to begin studying music immediately, as he was drafted that same summer and, after training as a machine-gunner, was ordered to serve on the Western Front.
In addition to practical and theoretical music studies, Weyrauch also attended musicological lectures and exercises with Hugo Riemann, Hermann Abert and Arnold Schering.
Becking persuaded Weyrauch to write a dissertation with the topic: Der sinfonische Aufbau bei Anton Bruckner, but he did not finish this work.
In the same year, Weyrauch gained insight into the ideas of the "Methode nach Schlaffhorst und Andersen [de]" through the mediation of his wife.
Weyrauch was particularly impressed by the strong influence of the singing movement on Protestant church music, which led to a new discovery Heinrich Schütz' and the Volksliedes.
Weyrauch had personal contact with the two leading figures of the singing movement - Walther Hensel, the founder of the "Finkensteiner Bund" and Fritz Jöde, the initiator of the Musicians' Guild.
Tasks and goals, which were anchored in the spirit of the youth movement, were outlined as follows: With this proclamation, both founding members rebelled against the common concert business, because in their opinion a passive audience was only a "music consuming sham community".
With the help of Karg-Elert, his sphere of activity was expanded in 1929 with a teaching position for music theory at the State Conservatory in Leipzig, which he was only able to hold for a short time, however, as he had to be dismissed due to the dearth of funds.
After losing this post, Weyrauch also lost his main job, as the National Socialists closed all adult education centers shortly after seizure of power in January 1933.
After a six-month war captivity in Schwedt, Weyrauch was able to return to Leipzig, where he resumed his position as cantor and became a member of the younger Thomanerchor at the request of Thomaskantor Günther Ramin voice training.
The place at the community centre in Böhlitz-Ehrenberg [de], in the district Gundorf of this municipality he lived for several decades, was renamed in his honour "Johannes-Weyrauch-Platz".
This relationship is particularly expressed through the reflection on certain categories of values: clarity, avoidance of all superfluous things and the use of economical and simple musical means.
The stylistic periodicity is structured as follows: The expressive style of the early phase is influenced by his Leipzig teachers, who felt committed to the music of the 19th century and had a central role model in Max Reger.
The harmonically complex sound structures, as he was taught in the "Leipzig School", are taken back by the contact with the singing movement in his second creative period and replaced by clear chords with tonal roots.
Archaic elements such as motifs influenced by Gregorian chant or free-flowing melodies that are not subordinated to a rigid bar scheme characterize the compositions.
In addition to the stylistic reorientation, the anti-Christian basic attitude promoted in the GDR also led to a loss of members in the churches, which is why Weyrauch wrote simple movements for small ensembles for practical reasons.
He described his last creative period as a "style of mirrored spiritual ideas", in which he dispensed with decorative elements in the individual voices in favour of clear diction in the overall arrangement of the works.
The tonal language, which becomes harsher and more brittle, deliberately dispenses with "musical beauty" and places the meditative element more strongly in the foreground.
However, the surroundings of Leipzig with its great names such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Robert Schumann and Max Reger also exerted an obligatory influence.
But instead of following this widespread trend, a conscious departure from this method of composition was made in favour of a turn towards a traditional musical language that is quiet, meditative and free of all obtrusiveness and externalities.
The spiritual worldview of anthroposophy, founded by Rudolf Steiner, who was interested in Weyrauch as a silent observer, seeks an individual, yet systematic approach to phenomena of the supersensible world.
Above all motets, introits and cantatas to sacred or biblical texts dominate the picture, whereas large forms such as oratorios, masses or passions are almost completely absent.
